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Warwickshire 308-2 v Sussex

It was an ill wind for Sussex, third in Division Two of the Specsavers County Championship, that scudded across the county ground all day. To further their chance of promotion, they needed to bowl out Warwickshire, the leaders who started the penultimate round 33 points in front, but they were baulked by two old masters in Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott, who took their county to 308 for two.

Both Bell and Trott are in their mid-30s, with Test averages in the 40s, and went into this game with over 900 first-class runs for the season. Batting with all the skill of old masters against Sussex’s keen pace attack, both reached 50 off 110 balls. The contrast in styles is extreme: Bell orthodoxy itself, Trott idiosyncracy, but together they strengthened Warwickshire’s prospects of returning to the first division as champions of the second.

After a summer of frenetic batting, this unbeaten partnership of 206 between Bell and Trott was like a week in a sanatorium beside the sea. They did not make unforced errors, they did not play away from their body, they did not hit across the line until they were set, they were never caught off balance and did not get themselves out. They batted like Alastair Cook, in other words, and almost nobody else.

Bell, 36, and Trott, 37 played themselves in and patiently wore the bowlers down, their distinction between scoring shots and defence much clearer than the sky which demanded floodlights all day.

Bell came in earlier and had time to reach his 57th first-class century, off 228 balls, shortly before the close. When 106 he reached 1,000 runs in this season’s championship, only the second after Surrey’s ­captain Rory Burns.

“Of all the goals I have achieved this season, getting 1,000 championship runs is the most satisfying because I have produced for the team and often it’s been in difficult conditions because we play so much cricket in April, May and September, when it can be tough,” Bell said. “It was tough at times today. On paper, their attack is as good as anything in county cricket. You can’t force the pace as a batsman on the pitch, so we had to sit in and take what we could.”

Bell cannot be said to have completely fulfilled his potential as a Test batsman – an average of 42 for 7,729 runs – but his aggregate in one-day internationals was not surpassed until this summer, and he has scored more than 13,000 runs, none of them ugly, for England. If the title of great is reserved for the finest half-dozen or so in a category, Bell would not be ranked among England’s great batsmen, but if it is extended to cover anybody who has been the prime mover in an Ashes series victory, Bell was such in 2013.

Trott’s bat, heavier than Bell’s, emitted a deeper sound and not only when he punched through midwicket. Unlike Bell, Trott is retiring at the end of this season. Nothing in his batting suggested decline, but he has burnt so much nervous energy at the crease, not merely in batting but his mannerisms.

At the start of every over comes the ritual – and often part of it during an over – when Trott scratches his guard with his boot then his bat, and a second time, and a third. Yet he averaged 44 in Tests, and though he scored only half Bell’s total of Test runs, he can claim to have ­fulfilled his talent.

The old masters were kept in check by Danny Briggs, who found sufficient spin for that to be an ill omen for Sussex.

Briggs had taken the first wicket when Dominic Sibley clubbed low to midwicket, and Trott joined Bell when Will Rhodes was bowled by one of several balls that kept low.

Thereafter Bell and Trott were not beaten until the second new ball, when Sussex pitched a fuller length than with the first. It has been a feverish summer for the next man in, constantly on the edge of his seat whatever his side, but not on Tuesday for Warwickshire’s Sam Hain.